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Record transaction volumes and a heavy handover pipeline are likely to expand the legal work around off-plan contracts. The eventual dispute load cannot yet be read from court data, but the exposure is already written into the agreements.
Dubai’s property market closed 2025 at AED 917 billion across more than 270,000 transactions, up 20 percent on the year, according to Dubai Land Department data. Activity remained elevated in the first half of 2026: sales, mortgages and gifts reached a combined AED 419.94 billion across 112,850 transactions. Property sales accounted for AED 286.43 billion, the second-highest first-half result on record, behind only the AED 326.6 billion recorded in the same period of 2025, according to a W Capital analysis of DLD data.
Volumes of that size carry a legal dimension that surfaces later. Because off-plan disputes often emerge around construction milestones, resale attempts or handover, the legal consequences of recent sales may appear further along the development cycle rather than at the point of purchase. Kavitha Panicker, Managing Partner at Al Safar & Partners Advocates and Legal Consultants in Downtown Dubai, has practised with the firm since 2009 and advises on off-plan disputes, developer and buyer conflicts, title registration and rental litigation. Her published profile also places RERA-governed transactions and landlord-tenant matters before the Rental Disputes Settlement Centre within the practice, for clients ranging from individual investors and expatriate families to developers and multinationals. The firm states that it has more than 80 lawyers and consultants, while its website is available in eight languages.
What the Court Data Shows, and What It Does Not
The DIFC Courts recorded 1,509 cases in 2025, a 43 percent increase year on year, carrying AED 18.6 billion in claims, and the first half of 2026 added 810 cases worth AED 10.02 billion, up 48 percent in value. Those filings span banking and finance, employment, arbitration, crypto, manufacturing and real estate, and the official releases do not disclose how many were property matters or whether real estate filings rose. Onshore, the Rental Disputes Centre concluded 443 reconciliation agreements worth AED 190.7 million in the second quarter of 2025 at an average of six days per case, a measure of how quickly rental settlements conclude rather than of caseload direction. On the available data, an increase in property litigation cannot be measured. What can be described is the exposure.
The Exposure Sits in the Handover Pipeline
Fitch Ratings projected in May 2025 that around 120,000 units could be scheduled for handover during 2026, against 30,000 delivered in 2024 and 90,000 planned for 2025, while noting that actual delivery may be reduced or delayed. Off-plan carried most of the first half of 2026 by transaction count: roughly 58,800 off-plan sales worth AED 139.8 billion, against 27,200 ready-property deals worth AED 146.7 billion, on the W Capital breakdown. The dispute categories attached to a pipeline of that shape are well established: delivery measured against contractual completion dates, units that diverge from marketed specifications, defect and snagging claims at handover, and resale restrictions that buyers encounter only when they attempt to exit. Title registration and developer-buyer conflict, both named in Panicker’s practice description, sit in the same chain.
Several Forums, One Drafting Question
Service charges for jointly owned properties are approved under RERA supervision and administered through the Mollak system. Where approved charges remain unpaid, recovery may proceed through the Rental Disputes Settlement Centre, and RERA’s Tayseer initiative, launched in March 2025, offers participating owners payment plans of at least six months, with management companies agreeing not to begin enforcement action while the plan is being followed. Unfinished and cancelled developments fall to the Special Tribunal for Unfinished and Cancelled Real Property Projects, established under Decree No. 33 of 2020, whose awards, orders and decisions are definitive and not subject to ordinary appeal procedures. For disputes not reserved to a specialist tribunal, parties may also agree to submit eligible civil and commercial matters to the DIFC Courts. In a market running this many parallel tracks, identifying where a claim belongs is itself legal work.
Growth in DIFC filings, moreover, cannot be treated solely as evidence of worsening disputes. The Courts attribute part of the increase to greater voluntary use of their jurisdiction: 31 percent of Court of First Instance claims in 2025 were opt-in matters, rising to 42 percent in the first half of 2026, when nearly one in three cases across all divisions arrived by the parties’ express choice. A rising caseload in a forum parties voluntarily select may therefore reflect confidence in the court as well as growth in disputes.
The scale of recent off-plan sales and the volume of projects approaching completion are likely to increase the importance of contract review, forum selection and early dispute assessment. The eventual size of that workload cannot yet be measured from the available court data, but the underlying exposure is already built into the agreements signed during the market’s record years.
